Well, my aunt’s birthday was coming up and I was about to send her copies of our wedding pictures when I though, why not make  something special? maybe something like the album that I made for Windi? I called mom and she liked the idea so it was a go.

I had ran out of linen, that meant a having to get fabric. Not wanting to wait until Saturday to go to Fabric Row, I ran to Karlin’s after work and bought some gabardine which matched closely our “wedding color”. It also would be easier to work with than linen.

I also decided to make my life easier, sewing wise, this time around. Remember how I had used two bands of cream colored fabric? Well, it was quite difficult to make them match, so this time I decided to use the cream fabric for an embroidery applique instead.

Another change I made was to make the cover flaps longer; so that they would go all the way to the binding/spine of the album instead of half way. This would allow me to “hide” extra photo pages that didn’t have pictures and would make the album look neater. The embroidery was the same as before, inspired by the LOVE statue by Robert Indiana; as this was also part of our wedding invitations, but this time centered and with a border.

And here is the finished product:

I printed in beige/tan color paper, the description for each photo as she was not able to make it. Here you can’t see it because, for her, I placed a little  birthday card.

So what do you think? I have to make a few more of these…I really like the final product and would like to make one for each of mom’s sisters!

About a decade has passed since we met. We didn’t really hang out much until we became part of the Multicultural Student Network where I also met Clarke.

We’ve kept in touch – her being better than I am- and “Wow, we’re old” is the sentence that immediately comes out every time we realize that we’ve known each other for over a decade now. When I got engaged, she was the first person I talked to after calling my immediate family.

For the wedding she not only made time from her extremely busy schedule, but she also came early to help out; and she did amazing things with the little time we had. My bouquet? She made it. My sister’s? Flowers by Windi ™ too. Flower girl basket? Distribution of boutonnieres and corsages? Church decoration (the pomander balls/pom poms) setup? Yup, that too.

She was also there, surrounded by Mexican women catching up and gossiping, when we were setting up the reception hall.

So you can see that when we received the photos I knew I wouldn’t just send them loose, on an envelope to her. I had to make them look special! The pressure was on!

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• The base:

While at Pearl on South Street (with Thad’s mom) I had found one of these useful little albums:

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• The Materials:

I had some really pretty linen left from a courtain and some of my favorite natural (unbleached) calico.

I also used the embossing stamp I used for the invitations (handmade) and embroidery thread in the color of the linen piece.

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• Cutting the fabric:

First I cut bands of the white fabric, I wanted them to be about 2 inches wide, so I cut them to be 2.75 inches, to allow for 3/8 seams.

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• Sewing:

Next I figured how big I wanted the red center piece so that the white band would be more or less at the very center of both front and back page. I think it was about 4 inches. I cut the remaining pieces so it would allow for a 2 inch flap approximately.

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• Embroidery:

Once the basic sewing was done, I first traced and then embroidered the LOVE stamp used for our wedding invitations.

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• Finished product:

  

1. Beheaded LOTS of mums!
2. Went glue gun CRAZY!

Nah, seriously, these are the changes that I made to the pomander idea:

Reagents (sorry, can’t take the scientist out of me!):

craft balls (styrofoam balls), silk mums (and their leaves)
fall “sprigs” as accent, exacto knife, scissors, glue gun, glue sticks and ribbon.

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Procedure:

One: Proceeded to behead the mums, separating the mum flowers, the leaves and the stems. Separated the leaves from some of their plastic “frame” using an exacto knife; this allowed for easier gluing later.

Two: I made a hole in the center of each ball…it would have been difficult to do so after the gluing process! Notice what I am using to make the hole? Yep, the stick where the silk mums came in. Isn’t that crafty of me?

Three: Using the stick again, I pushed the ribbon through the hole.

Four: Since I wanted the balls to look more like small “arrangements” I wanted to add a little bit of green (rather than end up with a sea of undistinguishable red) by using the leaves so I glued them to the base of each mum. About 2-4 leaves per mum. I really wanted the green to peek out here and there…

Five: Glued the flowers to the ball. I had a scheme for this; to make them look even, I would glue the first flower and surround it with flowers…sort of like a honeycomb of flowers.

Six: every so often I would ad a little bit of the “fall spring of color” to add a little bit of interestingness to the ball.

Seven: Since I wanted one of the sides to lie flat against the pew, I covered one side with leaves only (this sort of also made them look like certain white-flower arrangements that are placed in bride’s homes in Mexico on their wedding day)…I guess this makes them technically semi-circles.

Now, tie the ribbon (make a small bow at the end) and…

all done! now, tie a little knot (or bow as I did) on the ribbon and you’re ready to hang them on the pews!

….now if I could only find someone else that needs them…

In our little garden, tomatoes were still being harvested; the basil was giving up and the eggplants were growing beautifully.

(/of channeling the “oldest” of the Golden girls)

Yes, this took place about a month before our wedding. We were working on a final idea for the centerpiece but then it hit me…what about the church?

While reading Wedding Bee for ideas (a great place if you’re going the DIY way), I found a post that pointed out the Pomander balls made by Mackenzie 
for her brother’s wedding. She and her new sister in law not only made the flowers but also glued them to big paper lanterns and used them as center pieces.

I really liked them…but I already had the centerpiece idea…then it hit me…but what about pews?

Obviously the ones Mackenzie made were going to be too large…and it would take a little bit of more effort to make it look the way that I wanted…but hey, that’s for the next post!